RF Public Chamber forming list of candidates to Public TV Council

RF President Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree to create Public Television on April 17

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MOSCOW, May 3 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Public Chamber proceeds to the formation of a list of candidates to the Public Television Council, Deputy Secretary of the RF Public Chamber Mikhail Ostrovsky said on Thursday.

“The notification of the Public Chamber Secretary Yevgeny Velikhov was posted on the PC website on Wednesday - about the nomination of candidates to the Public Television Council and the order of the formation of the candidates’ list. The relevant working group will prepare the list of candidates by the end of June, and during July the Chamber members could familiarise with it and approve it by a secret rating vote, in order to submit to the RF president for approval a list of 25 people,” Ostrovsky said. “That does not mean that the president will approve all the 25 people,” he added. “The Council will have a very important right – to elect the supervisory board that will manage the public television,” the PC deputy secretary said.

RF President Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree to create Public Television on April 17. It should be up and running as of January 1, 2013. “The decree envisages a number of measures to ensure the television channel should be genuinely public, and not something else. It must be not government-run, but social. Effective measures must be in place for eliminating excessive state pressures on the activity of that institution,” Medvedev explained.

The regulations on the procedure of the Public TV Council formation, approved by the Public Chamber, say that “the candidates can be nominated by citizens who have reached 21 years of age and legal entities. A citizen of the Russian Federation who has reached the age of 25, who has higher education and special services to the state and society, active civic position and experience in the public, creative and scientific activities can be a member of (a candidate) to the Public Television Council.”

“Members of the Federation Council upper house of RF parliament, State Duma lower house, members of RF Public Chamber, state and municipal servants, legally incapable or impaired persons or those who have outstanding or unexpunged conviction cannot be members of the Council,” according to the regulations.

Member of the RF Public Chamber Nikolai Svanidze for his part urged not to take the future Public Television Council “as a military headquarters of the government or opposition.” “Those who expect a quick political return from it will be disappointed,” the Public Chamber member warned.